Thailand's anti-establishment red-shirted protesters under the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship have ended up where they stood last April, when their previous anti-government street demonstrations degenerated into wanton riots at several Bangkok locations.

Back then, the UDD rampaged in the streets soon after the pro-establishment coalition government of Abhisit Vejjajiva took office with conspicuous army backing, after the reds' elected governments and ruling party were snookered in the streets and Bangkok's airports by the yellow-shirted protesters under the People's Alliance for Democracy and later dissolved by unprecedented judicial assertiveness. This time, the catalyst is the constitution court's landmark verdict on 26 February to seize nearly two thirds of exiled former-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's frozen 76 billion baht, with the balance in legal limbo.

The reds rallied and railed, then as now, for Thaksin on the one hand and against the establishment entitlements and privileges on the other. In Thailand's five-year saga of political drama and brinkmanship, the reds have seen their chosen party dissolved twice and their preferred leader deposed by a military coup. Their grievances and demands for a louder voice and a greater share have been dismissed time and again by the pro-establishment coalition comprising the military, palace insiders, the PAD, the Democrat Party, Bangkok's civil society and media with vested interests in the status quo – fronted by the suave and savvy Abhisit of Oxbridge pedigree and accent to pacify sceptics abroad and appear international at home.

As Thailand's polarisation deepens and Thaksin's corruption is laid bare, the reds' rage against social injustice and customised standards of the Bangkok-based elite who have lorded it over Thailand's steep socio-political hierarchy for decades have eclipsed Thaksin's own personal vendetta against his establishment enemies. For Thaksin, the struggle is now all personal after his assets confiscation. For the reds, the fight is increasingly an organic people's movement to upend the established order. Such all-or-nothing stakes bode ill for Thailand's stable future.

During his five years of pandering populism, Thaksin unwittingly awoke the rural masses to a sense of opportunities and upward mobility previously unseen, and in so doing delivered Thailand into the 21st century. That he won't go away enables his establishment opponents to paint the reds as gullible and misguided Thaksin-lackeys and hinders the reds from finding alternative leadership and organisational wherewithal. The post-coup period since Thaksin was ousted in September 2006 has been a grand campaign to put a lid on the red forces unleashed during his rule.

That lid is tested during each reds' upsurge. At issue now is whether they will regroup and return to Bangkok's streets yet again. Their best option, and Thailand's most workable road ahead, is to put up and encourage as much a democratic process as possible before new polls are due late next year. If by then Abhisit still cannot come up with the goods and connect with the neglected rural heartlands even as constitutional rules and electoral referees are stacked against his opponents, the reds can have their say. Abhisit is the logical offspring of the establishment but until his backers make the necessary adjustments, reforms and concessions to accommodate the new demands and expectations of the 21st century, the reds simply will return in one fashion or another.